VIDEO — Geert Wilders: Stand for Freedom! Gatestone Institute via YouTube, June 30, 2016
Archive for June 2016
VIDEO — Geert Wilders: Stand for Freedom!
June 30, 2016Terrorist kills 13-year-old in her bedroom in Kiryat Arba
June 30, 2016Source: Israel Hayom | Terrorist kills 13-year-old in her bedroom in Kiryat Arba
Palestinian terrorist from Hebron area infiltrates Kiryat Arba and breaks into home, where he stabs 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel to death • Security personnel shoot and kill assailant • PM Benjamin Netanyahu: World must condemn this horrific attack.
Israel Hayom Staff
|
13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel, who was murdered in her bedroom in Kiryat Arba by a Palestinian terrorist on Thursday
|
A Palestinian terrorist murdered a 13-year-old Israeli girl in her bedroom on Thursday after infiltrating into the Jewish community of Kiryat Arba, next to Hebron, in Samaria.
The terrorist broke into the home of Hallel Yaffa Ariel and stabbed her, wounding her critically. She was taken to hospital but succumbed to her wounds and was pronounced dead in the hospital.
The assailant, identified by the Palestinian Health Ministry as Mohammed Tarayreh, 17, from the nearby Bani Naim village, was shot dead by Kiryat Arba security personnel.
One security officer who rushed to the scene was also shot and seriously wounded. The wounded security officer, a Kiryat Arba resident in his 30s, was transported to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem with multiple gunshot wounds. His wife, an emergency medical volunteer, was on the team of emergency responders who treated him at the scene. She later accompanied him to the hospital.
Kiryat Arba Mayor Malachi Levinger told Army Radio that a Palestinian had climbed a security fence and entered a family home, where he attacked the girl.
“Two members of a response team exchanged fire with him,” Levinger said. “One of them was wounded and the terrorist was killed.”
Kiryat Arba residents were initially instructed to remain inside their homes, but that directive has now been lifted, with residents to resume their normal routines.
Magen David Adom paramedic Dvora Aviad recounted, “I saw a girl, about 13, and a man about 30 lying near the entrance of the house with serious injuries. The girl was unconscious, wasn’t breathing, and did not have a pulse. She had suffered several serious wounds to her upper body.
“We administered lifesaving treatment at the scene, including CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as well as stopping the bleeding. We quickly transported her to the hospital while continuing resuscitation efforts. Her condition was very serious.
“The other victim was fully conscious and communicated with us the entire way to the hospital.”
Following the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security consultation with Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
In a statement, Netanyahu said, “The horrific murder of an innocent girl in her bed demonstrates the bloodlust and inhumanity of the incitement fueled terrorists we are facing. The entire nation deeply identifies with the family and says to the murderers — you will not break us. We will continue to act with determination and resoluteness against terrorism anywhere and anytime.
“The whole world must condemn this murder, just as it condemned the attacks in Orlando and Brussels. I expect the Palestinian leadership to unequivocally condemn this brutal murder and take immediate action to end incitement.
“Enlightened nations must join us in this demand and apply pressure on those who head the system of incitement that leads to the murder of children in their beds, rather than condemn a country that defends its children and citizens.”
Killing for a Cause: Sharia Law & Civilization Jihad
June 30, 2016Killing for a Cause: Sharia Law & Civilization Jihad, Counter Jihad.com via YouTube, June 29, 2016
(Update: The video has been banned by YouTube as “hate speech.” Please see also, YouTube bans video on Muslim Brotherhood, Sharia and Civilization Jihad as “hate speech”. — DM)
Trump, Brexit, Iceland, Turin, and Rome
June 30, 2016Trump, Brexit, Iceland, Turin, and Rome, Gingrich Productions, Newt Gingrich, June 29, 2016
There has been a lot of commentary about the British decision to leave the European Union and its implications for Trump and the American presidential race.
Trump was at his golf course in Turnberry, Scotland the day after the vote. He was enthusiastic about Brexit and claimed it was a model for the American choice. He suggested the British hostility to bureaucracy in Brussels paralleled the American hostility to bureaucracy in Washington. He felt the concerns about massive immigration and Syrian refugees were the same in both countries. He drew a direct comparison between the British desire to be independent again and the American desire to put America first in foreign relations. And of course, he did the entire press conference wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.
Clinton took the opposite approach. Despite the defeat of the British establishment and its “Remain” campaign, she was committed to stability and risk avoidance. She emphasized the dangers of Brexit whereas Trump had emphasized the opportunities.
Yet focusing on Brexit creates much too narrow a basis for understanding the winds of change sweeping through the Western world.
The first harbinger of change this year was May 23, the day of the Austrian presidential elections.
In the first round, the two parties that had dominated Austria for the past half-century came in fourth and fifth. An independent came in third. The two formerly minor parties in the run-off were a hardline conservative anti-immigrant candidate and a green who favored more immigration. The entire national establishment mobilized to block the anti-immigrant candidate. He got 49.65 percent of the vote.
The second big signal of change was the Italian municipal elections. Out of disgust with widespread corruption, an Italian comedian named Beppe Grillo launched the Five Star Movement in 2009. In the 2013 elections, it came in second. This month, the Five Star Movement candidates won the mayor’s offices in both Turin and Rome.
Virginia Raggi, 37, became the first female mayor in Rome’s 2,800-year history. In the midst of a corruption scandal which forced the previous mayor to resign, Raggi got 67 percent of the vote against the Prime Minister’s party. In Turin, the results were similar and the reform movement won in 17 other cities.
Brexit, then, was at least the third big-change election in the West this year. The entire British establishment, the business leadership, President Obama and Hillary Clinton all came out for the Remain side. They lost 52-48 in a stunning upset which the polls did not predict. In England and Wales, the margins were much higher as people voted to make Britain independent again.
Fourth and finally, last Sunday was the little-noticed election of a new president in Iceland. The former president had resigned in a scandal caused by release of the Panama Papers. He had broken no laws but his previously secret investments were very unpopular. The winner of the presidential elections with 39 percent of the vote was Gudni Johannesson, a history teacher. Second, with 28 percent of the vote, was Halla Tomasdottir, a businesswoman. The leading professional politician, a former prime minister, got 13 percent.
These results from four different countries show a consistent momentum toward throwing out established politicians and rejecting the establishment.
There are real warnings here for Clinton and real signs of encouragement for Trump.
Abbas’s Satisfied Customers
June 29, 2016Abbas’s Satisfied Customers, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, June 28, 2016
Originally published by the Jerusalem Post.
One of the more remarkable aspects of the blood libel sounded by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in his address before the European Parliament in Brussels last week is the claim that he ad-libbed the part about rabbis poisoning Palestinian wells.
After refusing to meet President Reuven Rivlin who was also in Brussels last week, Abbas ascended the podium in Brussels and began his custom of demonizing Jewish and Israel. Clearing his throat, the man whose incitement is most responsible for the fact that the Palestinians are the most anti-Semitic people in the world, began his speech by saying, “We are against incitement.”
Then, as is his wont, Abbas proceeded to incite mass murder of Jews by accusing rabbis of ordering the poisoning of Palestinian wells.
In his words, “Just a week ago, a week, a group of rabbis in Israel announced, in a clear announcement, demanding their government, to poison, to poison, the water of the Palestinians.”
“Is this not incitement? Is this not clear incitement, to the mass murder of the Palestinian people?” It’s not quite clear what it was that he was ad-libbing but a reasonable bet is that he was embellishing what was already in his planned speech. In the days preceding his speech, the Abbas-controlled PLO media put out stories claiming that a non-existent rabbi, who heads a non-existent rabbinical council issued an opinion that Jews in Judea and Samaria should poison Palestinian wells.
As the IsraellyCool website pointed out, by Abbas’s telling, it wasn’t just one non-existent rabbi, who heads a non-existent rabbinical council that told Jews in general to poison wells. In Abbas’s ad-libbed version, the entire non-existent council, led by the non-existent rabbi ordered the government to poison Palestinian water.
At any rate, whether Abbas winged the blood libel or just embellished a less powerful one, far from being a mitigating factor for judging the significance of his statement, the claim that he was speaking on the fly makes it all the worse.
Abbas simply couldn’t help himself.
There he was, facing the EU Parliament which has shoveled out billions of euros to fund his incitement for the past two decades, and either one of two things happened. Either his EU-funded Jew hatred took control of him and just couldn’t restrain himself, or he decided to show the Europeans that their investment in him has been well placed.
For their part, his European funders couldn’t be more pleased with the product of their investment.
And so we had the remarkable spectacle of Abbas receiving a prolonged standing ovation at the end of his remarks. Israelis expected the European parliamentarians to walk out, or boo, or interject a few cat calls.
But Abbas knew his audience better than the Israelis do. He gave them the red meat they paid for, and they rewarded him for it with a huge, enthusiastic ovation.
The least remarkable aspect of Abbas’s revolting claim is that two days later he walked it back after The New York Times called him on it.
Abbas libels Israel either directly or through his media every day. Every once in a while, a Western media outlet is moved to report on a specific lie he tells. When that happens, he walks it back. And then he says it again, or something equally racist the next day and everyone shrugs or ignores it completely.
Abbas felt comfortable accusing rabbis of ordering the Israeli government to poison wells in front of a room of European lawmakers because for the past 20 years, the EU has been underwriting what may be the largest anti-Semitic hate campaign since the Nazis rose to power. Abbas knows they do this because he has been depositing their checks.
Every year, the EU shovels more than a billion euros over to the Palestinians. As was the case in 2012, even in times of economic austerity in Europe, funds to the PA keep increasing. And with those funds, Abbas has indoctrinated the Palestinians to hate Jews and seek their mass murder and the destruction of the State of Israel as their highest aspiration.
And that of course is just the direct aid to the PA.
There is also the EU financing of anti-Israel NGOs, staffed by Israelis as well as Palestinians. Their job is to propagate blood libels like the one Abbas shared last Thursday. Every year, the EU and its member states give these groups millions of euros to spread tales of Israelis and Jewish avarice.
Two such groups – Breaking the Silence and B’tselem – have been enthusiastic parties in the water libels that come out in early summer every year. Both groups receive the lion’s share of their funding from foreign governments, mainly in Europe.
Last week, NRG website published candid camera footage of Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of Breaking the Silence, spreading a well-poisoning libel nearly identical to Abbas’s to a group of tourists by the village of Susiya, in southern Judea.
Shaul told the tourists, “One of the [Arab] villages, this village actually, it’s new that they [the Palestinians] came back because a few years ago the settlers basically poisoned all the water systems of the village.”
The footage was taken by the Ad Kan organization two years ago. For the past several years, Ad Kan’s operatives infiltrated far-left, EU-funded NGOs and surreptitiously filmed their activities.
They took their findings public in January. Another film by Ad Kan, which was broadcast in January, showed Breaking the Silence members gathering tactical intelligence about IDF weapons systems and tactics deployed during the war with Hamas two years ago.
In the latest iteration of the water libel, of which Abbas’s well-poisoning story was just one product, B’tselem’s public relations director Roy Yellin tweeted, “While Palestinians suffer from severe water shortage, settlement swimming pools are full.”
As the Elder of Zion website noted, Yellin linked to a Haaretz report which made no such claim.
Moreover, as it noted, Palestinian water parks in Judea and Samaria are currently open for business and wet.
Lost in all the current coverage of the annual water shortage is that fact that Israeli communities in Samaria also had no water last week. Kedumim, Shilo and several other Jewish communities were without running water until earlier this week. Israelis were provided with drinking water from water tanks, just like the Palestinians were.
Also lost in the coverage is the clear fact that the Palestinians are solely responsible for the water shortage.
As Roi Sharon reported on Channel 10 news Sunday, there are two causes for current water shortages plaguing Palestinians and Israelis alike. First, there is the problem of massive water theft by Palestinians.
According to Sharon, over the past year, Palestinians stole five million cubic meters of water.
Second, for the past 20 years, Abbas and his associates have refused to agree to allow Israel to upgrade water infrastructure in Judea and Samaria to provide adequate water for the overall population.
Unlike Abbas and his PLO, Israel still upholds the agreements it signed with the PLO. In 1995, the sides agreed that they would only act together to improve the water infrastructure. And the Palestinians – as Abbas again proved – would rather have their people suffer from water shortages, victims in the EU-funded PA’s endless propaganda war against the Jews – than improve their lives and remove their talking point.
The same goes for Abbas’s Israeli partners in blood libel dissemination and of course, for the Europeans, who pay for the whole operation.
Abbas’s most recent anti-Jewish diatribe, and the warm reception it received from the Europeans who paid for it bear an important lesson for the many Israelis who search endlessly for ways to build friendlier relations with Europe.
The hard truth is that we cannot do anything to influence them. They operate in a closed intellectual circle.
They pay for blood libels. They receive them with standing ovations. They disseminate them at the UN and their media. And then they organize “peace” conferences, where Israel is expected to accept as fact or spend its entire time dispelling the lies they create through their Israeli and Palestinian employees and disseminate through their media.
The only option Israel has in the face of this circle of hatred is to attack the Europeans mercilessly for their Jew hatred and anti-Jewish discrimination.
Our only prospect for impacting this diseased, racist environment is to appeal to the conscience of those Europeans who still have one. Beyond that, the time has come to write them off.
The Imam Celebrated by the Church of Sweden: “The Jews are Behind the Islamic State!”
June 29, 2016The Imam Celebrated by the Church of Sweden: “The Jews are Behind the Islamic State!” Gatestone Institute, Ingrid Carlqvist, June 29, 2016
♦ Priests are afraid to talk about Jesus during mass. — Eva Hamberg, priest and professor, who in protest resigned from the priesthood and left the Church.
♦ The Church of Sweden may be headed towards “Chrislam” — a merging of Christianity and Islam. Swedish priests, noting the religious fervor among the Muslims now living in Sweden, enthusiastically take part in various interfaith projects
♦ “There are reliable sources from Egypt, showing that the Saudi royal family is really a Jewish family that came from Iraq to the Arabian Peninsula sometime in the 1700s. They built an army with the aid of British officers fighting the Ottoman sultanate.” — Imam Awad Olwan, with whom a priest, Henrik Larsson, is cooperating in an interfaith project.
♦ “The involvement that the Church of Sweden has shown for the vulnerability of Christian Palestinians, has been replaced with indifference to the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Syria and Iraq. In these countries, it is mostly Muslims who commit the atrocities, which is evidently enough to make the Church of Sweden concentrate on climate change and environmental issues instead.” — Eli Göndör, scholar of religion.
The Church of Sweden has departed from being a strong and stern state church. In the past, Swedes were born into it and, until 1951, no one was allowed to leave the church. These days, however, it is an institution that has very little to do with Christianity or Jesus. Sweden now, according to the World Values Survey, is one of the world’s most secular countries; every year a large number of Swedes leave the church.
It used to be that only atheists left the church; now it is the devout Christians that leave — in protest against the church’s increasingly questionable relationship to the Christian faith.
When, for example, the current Archbishop, Antje Jackelén, just before being appointed, participated in a question-and-answer session in the fall of 2013, and one of the questions was: “Does Jesus convey a more truthful image of God than Muhammad does?” surprisingly, the would-be archbishop did not immediately say yes, but instead involved herself in a long monologue about there being many ways to God. Evidently, this upset a lot of parishioners. A high-profile priest and professor, Eva Hamberg, resigned from the priesthood in protest and left the Church of Sweden.
“This made me leave faster,” she told the Christian newspaper, Dagen. “If the future Archbishop cannot stand by the Apostles’ Creed, but rather, rationalizes it, then secularization has gone too far.”
Hamberg, who has conducted research on the secularization process, said that in Sweden, secularization has escalated ever faster — even within the Church of Sweden. As an example, Hamberg said that Antje Jackelén does not believe in Immaculate Conception, but says it is a metaphor. Hamberg also said that there is a lack of reverence before the Triune God, and that the priests are afraid to talk about Jesus during mass.
“There is also a clear lack of tolerance within the Church of Sweden. The candidates [for the position of archbishop] were all very keen to talk about dialogue, and that sounds great, but it is all just empty phrases. The church leaders, in fact, persecute dissidents. If you do not agree with the ordination of women, you will not get ordained. The ceiling is incredibly low.”
When Antje Jackelén won the election and became Sweden’s first female Archbishop, it was time for the next shock. As her motto, she chose “God is Greater” — “Allahu Akbar” in Arabic. Jackelén referred to 1 John 3:19-21, which says:
“This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”
However, few believe the choice of motto is anything other than an open flirt with the Muslims of Sweden. In Islam, “Allahu Akbar” are the first words heard in every call to prayer, from every minaret around the world, and it is the cry we hear time and again in connection with Islamist suicide bombings, decapitations of non-Muslims, and terrorist attacks.
The King, Queen and Crown Princess of Sweden attend the archiepiscopal ordination of Bishop Antje Jackelén at Uppsala Cathedral, June 15, 2014. (Image source: Church of Sweden)
Archbishop Jackelén’s choice of a motto was not an exception; merely the most visible sign that the Church of Sweden may be headed towards “Chrislam” — a merging of Christianity and Islam. Swedish priests, noting the religious fervor among the Muslims now living in Sweden, enthusiastically take part in various interreligious projects. Last year, Stockholm’s Bishop, Eva Brunne, suggested removing the cross from the Seamen’s Church, enabling Muslims to pray there.
Gatestone Institute called her closest associate, Diocesan Priest Bo Larsson, to ask about this proposal.
Gatestone: Can the Christians in Muslim countries expect the same service in mosques?
Bo Larsson: “No, I don’t think so. To Muslims, the buildings have such a holy dignity.”
Gatestone: But not to Swedes?
Bo Larsson: “Apparently not. But there are already many mosques in Sweden.”
Gatestone: So why the need to pray in the Seamen’s Church?
Bo Larsson: “You know, it was just a suggestion. Many people on social media got it into their heads that this means Brunne is no longer a Christian, but that is not true of course.”
Gatestone: So we Christians should show Muslims respect, even though they do not respect us?
Bo Larsson: “I think so. That is my opinion. I have been a priest for 40 years. We are still the largest church in Sweden, and so we must provide opportunities for Muslims and Jews.”
Gatestone: “Are you saying ‘If you cannot beat them, join them?'”
Bo Larsson “That is one way to look at it.”
Gatestone: The Church of Sweden is known for its positive attitude towards homosexuals. Your own bishop, Eva Brunne, is openly gay. Yet you support Islam, which persecutes homosexuals?
Bo Larsson: “That is a difficult question to answer. But sure, it is terrible that gay people do not have any rights in Muslim countries and cannot live openly. Terrible.”
Gatestone: And you still want to support this religion?
Bo Larsson: “There are Christians who are opposed to homosexuality, too, you know.”
Gatestone: Who want to hang gays?
Bo Larsson: “No, maybe not. But I think you’re oversimplifying. What we want in Sweden is a dialogue with the Muslim people.”
Gatestone: Have you discussed homosexuality with Muslims?
Bo Larsson: “No.”
Gatestone: Do you think you can change Islam in Sweden into a tolerant, open-minded religion?
Bo Larsson: “There are fundamentalist Christians in the United States who do not accept homosexuals.”
Gatestone: But do you think there is a difference between not accepting and wanting to kill?
Bo Larsson: “I have never heard a Muslim say he wants to kill homosexuals.”
“Chrislam” has gone farthest in the immigrant-heavy Stockholm suburb of Fisksätra, in which 8,000 people, speaking 100 different languages live. There, the Church of Sweden is now raising money to build a mosque — a project named “House of God” — next to the existing church. This is how the project is described on its official website:
“The House of God represents a desire for peace, and real work in the spirit of peace. We are building a mosque adjacent to the existing church in Fisksätra. Between the church and the mosque, a glass enclosed, joint indoor square will be built. The House of God is unique, and an example of the cooperation and religious dialogue that is so important in our time. Come join our work!”
Gatestone called Henrik Larsson, a priest and one of the founders of the House of God project. He assured us that Islam is peaceful and democratic, but then gave some other answers indicating that he may not be so enthralled by this religion after all.
“We Christians have also done some horrible things over the centuries,” he said. ” We have burned witches, we have colonized other countries, and sided with different armies throughout our history. I think all religions can be used in a similar way.”
Gatestone: Are you saying that we live in 2016, and that they are still stuck in the 1400s?
H. Larsson: “If that. They are striving towards creating a society like the one that existed right after the Prophet Muhammad’s death, and that means we are talking 600s, 700s and 800s. That is their ideal. But there is also an Islam searching for new ways, a European Islam, those who want to try to be Muslims within the democratic and secular society.”
Gatestone: Many Muslims in Sweden seem not to want to adapt to Swedish culture. Look at all the rapes and sexual assaults at public swimming pools.
H. Larsson: “Yes, it is not easy for Afghan boys who have grown up in a society where women have to throw a sheet over themselves before leaving the house; of course they are marinated in an attitude towards women miles away from ours. Of course they should not be allowed to do that, but it is no wonder that there are conflicts. But they need to learn how we see men and women here in Sweden.”
Henrik Larsson celebrates the imam with whom he is cooperating in the “House of God.” His name is Awad Olwan, a Palestinian who came to Sweden in the 1960s. According to Henrik Larsson, Olwan is a modern Muslim, who became an imam late in life and likes democracy.
But when Gatestone called Olwan, to ask why he supported the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the 1970s and refused to denounce the Munich massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games, he at first pretended not to know what the PFLP was. The BBC has described it as “Combining Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology, the PFLP saw the destruction of Israel as integral to its struggle to remove Western capitalism from the Middle East.”
Olwan: “Oh, well, yes, we had a lot of different organizations back then, but forget that — that is history now. It meant Palestine Liberation something. I really do not remember to be quite honest.”
Gatestone: You refused to denounce the attack on the Jewish Olympians in Munich?
Olwan: “Yes, that’s right, but that was in the 70s! I don’t remember what I said then.”
Gatestone: Is your attitude different now?
Olwan: “Yes, of course. It was murder and nothing else.”
During our first conversation, Awad Olwan claimed to be very positive towards Jews. He said that there are no Jews in the House of God is simply because there is no Jewish congregation in Fisksätra, but that the organizers have invited a Jewish choir and are cooperating very well with them.
During our second talk, however, other thoughts emerged. When Olwan was asked some questions about the Quran and the hadith, he began cursing and saying that everything was the fault of “those f**king Mecca-Arabs.”
Gatestone: Are you saying Islam is not the problem; that it is the Saudi interpretation of Islam that messes everything up?
Olwan: “Exactly! And their religion [Wahhabism] was invented by a British imperialist 200 years ago. I cannot say anything more, because then I am an anti-Semite and whatnot.”
Gatestone: What is the truth about the Jews?
Olwan: “Okay, there are reliable sources from Egypt, showing that the Saudi royal family is really a Jewish family that came from Iraq to the Arabian Peninsula sometime in the 1700s. They built an army with the aid of British officers fighting the Ottoman sultanate. After that, they created the Jordanian army and so on and so on.”
Gatestone: Are you saying this is the reason the Jews are so quiet?
Olwan: “Yes. I wrote in my book that the purpose of ISIS/Daesh is to shift the focus from the Arab-Israeli conflict, and make this a conflict between Sunni and Shia — and they have succeeded. And now, they will erase the entire Middle East. You will see! It is Catholic land, Muslim land and a lot of other crap countries just to justify the existence of a Jewish state.”
Gatestone: I read online that many believe it was Mossad and the Jews who started ISIS?
Olwan: “Yes, that is a common theory in the Middle East, but if you say that in the West, you are told that you are a conspiracy nut and that you have no evidence. But here’s the deal: You cannot wage war against strong forces without having weapons delivered every day, you need planning and logistics. These are not f**king terrorists who have learned how to wage war on the internet, these are highly trained, highly skilled people. I have to go now.”
Gatestone: Are you referring to the Jews?
Olwan: “Exactly, exactly.”
Olwan is most likely a typical example of an imam who shows a conciliatory and friendly attitude towards naïve Swedish priests, but with a bit of encouragement, admits his hatred of Jews. He is, it seems, not too fond of the Church of Sweden’s friendly attitude towards gays, either.
Since the Church of Sweden became one of the first Christian communions in the world to approve gay marriage in 2005, more and more priests have come out as gay. In 2009, when Eva Brunne was appointed bishop of Stockholm, tongues wagged that the church is now being ruled by the “Lesbian League.” The Church of Sweden has participated in the Pride Festivals in Stockholm on many occasions, and several churches have allowed themselves be LGBT-certified. The price for this may be that the church will be forced to cut certain passages from Bible. Ulrika Westerlund, the chairperson for the RFSL (Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Rights), has warned the church: “There are elements in religious scriptures that are used against LGBT persons. Then we have to discuss if you want this certification, we do not want you to quote these passages from the Bible.”
Henrik Larsson, the priest, sees a problem with imams constantly condemning homosexuality as a sin — an Islamic tenet that presumably can never change because Allah said it [Quran,7:80-84.IG]. “We have to hope they catch up with us there. It was not so long ago that Christianity preached the same things.”
Gatestone: Do you hope and believe that Muslims can change, even though some hurl homosexuals from rooftops, hang them and flog them?
H. Larsson: “Yes, it is awful. But I believe that people are innately good at heart.”
Awad Olwan does not agree with Henrik Larsson. He thinks the Church of Sweden’s attitude towards homosexuality is a great sin:
“I disagree with them. Homosexuality is not good for the morals of society, and it is not what Jesus and Moses stood for. It is better if the whole thing with homosexuality in public life becomes a parenthesis.”
In the meantime, as the Church of Sweden is busy developing “Chrislam,” it never acknowledges that in the Middle East, Christians are being killed and effectively eradicated. In 2015, Eli Göndör, a scholar of religion, wrote in the magazine Dagens Samhälle:
“The involvement that the Church of Sweden has shown for the vulnerability of Christian Palestinians, has been replaced with indifference to the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Syria and Iraq. In these countries, it is mostly Muslims who commit the atrocities, which is evidently enough to make the Church of Sweden concentrate on climate change and environmental issues instead.”
To be fair, in February 2016, the Church of Sweden did do something for the Christians of the Middle East — it encouraged congregations and individuals to pray for them. The words Islam or Muslims were not mentioned in the appeal.
Gatestone called the Church of Sweden’s information service, to ask if the prayers had helped.
“I cannot answer that,” the voice on the phone said. “Can you send an e-mail with your question, and I’ll ask my colleagues to get you a reply?”
More airports under ISIS threat after Istanbul
June 29, 2016More airports under ISIS threat after Istanbul, DEBKAfile, June 29, 2016
The US, Europe and the Middle East are again refusing to connect the dots of the terrorist threat, recalling the denial that marked the peak period of Al Qaeda’s atrocities in the early 2000’s.
When the US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter trumpeted the Fallujah victory over the Islamic State on June 27, he neglected to disclose that the real victors were Iranians – not Iraqis. The next day, an ISIS suicide attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk airport overshadowed that success, killing at least 41 people including 13 foreign nationald and injuring more than 230.
As the Obama administration labored to conceal from the public in the West its strategy of using Shiite forces to hammer ISIS in Iraq and parts of Syria, the Sunni terrorists retaliated in Istanbul – and not just there.
Seven ISIS suicide bombers, some on motorcycles, exploded on Monday, June 27, in a Christian village in the Lebanon Valley near Baʿalbek. A week earlier, an ISIS suicide bomber blew himself up at the gates of a large Jordanian military base on the Syrian border.
The connection between the ISIS arenas and cause and event is there for anyone who wants to see it.
ISIS has a ready store of suicide bombers who are willing to blow themselves up, not just because they are ‘extreme fanatics’ or “thugs” as President Obama insists on defining them, but because they believe they are fighting a religious war: Sunnis against Shiites, Sunnis against Christians and Sunnis against Jews.
On this point, Obama is in denial.
Turkey’s Sunni President Tayyip Erdogan was swiftly punished for concluding a political-military-intelligence agreement with the Jewish state. That same day, three suicide bombers, probably waiting for months at a safe house near the Istanbul airport, were ordered from ISIS Syrian headquarters in Raqqa, to go into action.
Neither the dense US intelligence net in the region, nor Turkish and Israeli intelligence managed to intercept the order.
DEBKAfile intelligence sources point out that the highly secure Ataturk airport, the third largest in Europe, is not the only one on the continent at which ISIS suicide units are lurking ready to strike.
American-European intelligence input points to their presence near at least two or three other airports in Europe. The problem is that the intel is very general, pointing to intent, with no specifics on countries or airports.
The public in the West and Middle-East are not told either about the ‘small’ victories scored by ISIS on the battle field. For instance, ISIS forces managed to block the Syrian-Hizballah advance towards the highway leading from Palmyra to Raqqa, inflicting heavy losses despite Russian air cover.
In Israel, where security awareness is usually high, no one was told about the successful ISIS engagement at the Syria-Jordan-Israel border junction bordering on the Israeli Golan against US-trained and armed Syrian rebels, who fought under artillery cover from Jordan.
In other words, ISIS has established itself on the Israeli border, a few kilometers away from the Sea of Galilee and Tiberius.
The Islamic State is fully geared to respond to such losses as Fallujah by going for strategic gains on the ground and inflicting horrible retribution on its victims by remotely activating sleeper cells of suicide killers.
Rather than being degraded, as Obama claims, ISIS is fully equipped to target its victims across several continents.
On Tuesday Istanbul airport was its chosen target. Now, we must wait and see who is next.
Hillary’s ‘Serious Lack of Competence’ Cost lives at Benghazi
June 29, 2016Hillary’s ‘Serious Lack of Competence’ Cost lives at Benghazi, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, June 29, 2016
Hillary’s actions in Libya were an implementation of the policy called for by foreign policy professionals for years: to ignore whatever a study of Islamic doctrine and law might reveal about the thought processes and motivations of Islamic jihadis, and to assume that they’re motivated by the same mix of pragmatism and self-interest that motivates secular Western urban cosmopolites, i.e., people just like themselves.
The foreign policy establishment that is irrevocably committed to these politically correct fantasies must be swept out. And to elect Hillary Clinton President of the United States would be, in D. W. Wilber’s words, “lunacy on a grand scale.”
************************
Former CIA officer D. W. Wilber noted in The Hill Monday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s actions leading up to the Benghazi attack, and the Obama administration’s foreign policy in Libya as a whole were “lunacy on a grand scale”: “Additional security was denied even though intelligence reports clearly indicated the presence in Libya of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups hostile to the United States.” Hillary’s “trust in the various militia factions to set aside their longstanding differences and establish a governing body in the war torn country illustrates another amateur mistake.” But it wasn’t. It was a professional mistake.
In reality, Hillary’s actions in Libya were an implementation of the policy called for by foreign policy professionals for years: to ignore whatever a study of Islamic doctrine and law might reveal about the thought processes and motivations of Islamic jihadis, and to assume that they’re motivated by the same mix of pragmatism and self-interest that motivates secular Western urban cosmopolites, i.e., people just like themselves.
This is the kind of disastrous miscalculation preached by establishment foreign policy wonks including the likes of the puerile and silly Will McCants (and the Qatar-funded Brookings Institution in general), Max Abrahms (and the Council on Foreign Relations in general), and a host of others that the State Department and other foreign policy entities hire by the pound.
The foreign policy establishment is a bipartisan creation, and both parties refuse to challenge its hegemony. The Republicans, as the House Select Committee on Benghazi hearings showed Tuesday, continue instead to let Hillary and Obama off the hook, and don’t even come close to challenging the entrenched foreign policy bureaucracy. Breitbart News noted that the final report from Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC)’s committee refused “to blame President Obama or then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as refus[ed] to say directly if Clinton lied to the American people regarding the Benghazi attacks.”
The Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell said of Gowdy after the Tuesday hearing: “It was up to him to get to the truth, and he punted. Just as with the IRS investigation, the Republicans lacked the fortitude to confront those responsible.”
Bozell detailed the many failures of Gowdy’s inquiry: “The causes, events and circumstances regarding the attacks on the American personnel and facilities at Benghazi are still a mystery to the American people. Who denied the multiple requests for additional security for the compound? No answer. Who is being held responsible for the deaths of these men? No answer. Why did this administration deliberately lie about the video? No answer. Should the Commander-in-Chief be held responsible for the multiple failures of the military? Should the Secretary of State be held responsible for the disastrous consequences of State Department decisions? Not according to this report. They wouldn’t even state that Hillary Clinton lied about the video though her own emails, read by committee members, prove she had! But they did blame a ‘rusty bureaucratic process.’”
That “rusty bureaucratic process” is a product of the foreign policy establishment that led us into this mess. Hillary Clinton is just their most prominent exponent — which does not in the least exonerate her. It’s just to say that not only does Hillary Clinton’s influence over the U.S. government in whatever capacity need to be decisively rejected; the whole foreign policy establishment needs to be swept out, cherished and unquestioned assumptions rejected, and the edifice remade by people who are more realistic and unafraid to base policy on unpleasant realities rather than upon politically correct wishful thinking.
Even worse, right after the Benghazi massacre, the father of one of those slain there recounted that Secretary of State Clinton spoke to him at a memorial service about the Muhammad filmmaker, saying, “We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted.” And she did. The filmmaker, who went by several different names, had a record full of run-ins with the law, and at the time of the Benghazi attacks was out on parole. A condition of his parole, however, was that he not go on the Internet – which he apparently did in order to upload the notorious video to YouTube.
For that, he was arrested and imprisoned for several months, thereby becoming the first political prisoner in the U.S. for Obama’s war on free speech and enforcement of Sharia blasphemy laws. There can be no doubt that he was imprisoned not for the technicality of the probation violation (while thousands of more serious probation violators walked the streets), but for insulting Muhammad. His arrest was a symbol of America’s capitulation to the Sharia. He was nothing more than the fall guy who became the first offender against the new de facto federal crime of blasphemy against Islam.
That, too, was a reflection of the foreign policy establishment’s determination to compel Americans to stop doing anything and everything that any Muslim might construe as offensive to Islam. Reflecting the establishment policy also were Hillary’s fatuous words: “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.” In response to that, Donald Trump recently opined that Hillary was “in total denial, and her continuing reluctance to ever name the enemy broadcasts weakness across the entire world — true weakness.” Clinton wants, he said, “to take away American’s guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us. Let them come into the country, we don’t have guns. Let them come in, let them have all the fun they want….The bottom line is that Hillary supports policies that bring the threat of radical Islam into American and allow it to grow overseas, and it is growing.”
Trump’s point was sound. In what way was it not? Combining unrestricted immigration and a massive influx of Muslim migrants, among whom the Islamic State has promised to embed jihadis, with a disarmed American population is simply an invitation to jihad massacres on a frequency never hitherto imagined. Could there be an Orlando-style attack every day? Why not, in the America of the near future that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are busy preparing for us?
Trump declared: “The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system really to screen.” Again, his point his sound: all those, including Hillary, who are busy excoriating Trump for the “racism” and “bigotry” of his immigration proposal have not bothered to suggest any alternative plan for preventing jihadis from entering the country. Hillary and the rest of the political and media elites would rather see Americans subjected to jihad mass murder on a huge scale than do anything that is politically incorrect.
The foreign policy establishment that is irrevocably committed to these politically correct fantasies must be swept out. And to elect Hillary Clinton President of the United States would be, in D. W. Wilber’s words, “lunacy on a grand scale.”
Stop Importing Jihadists: Sharia Supremacists Have No Right to Enter the U.S.
June 29, 2016Stop Importing Jihadists: Sharia Supremacists Have No Right to Enter the U.S., Breitbart, Jim Hanson, June 29, 2016
[T]he practice of Sharia is simply not compatible with life in the U.S. It is also the dividing line between Medieval Islam, with its abhorrent practices such as death for homosexuals; stoning for victims of rape; forced marriages and genital mutilation for girls; and Modern Islam, which could properly be called post-Sharia.
********************
Donald Trump lit off a firestorm with his call for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. The deadly threat of Islamist terror and the migrant violence in Europe make a ban on Muslim immigration seem like a reasonable solution.
But we have Muslim allies, the King of Jordan for example, who would be affected by such an action. So if banning all Muslims is not the perfect solution, how can we deal with the ones who are a serious problem without alienating our allies?
The Center for Security Policy just released a white paper detailing how to do that entitled “Stop Importing Jihadists: Making Sharia-Supremacism a Bar to Immigration and Naturalization.” It explains how existing laws can be used to stop allowing Muslims from coming to this country who do not share our American values. This does not mean all Muslims, but it is a significant number who believe the totalitarian Islamist code called Sharia should be placed above the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. citizens have rights. But clearly, there are no rights for non-citizens to visit or migrate to the United States. It is a privilege. We need to make sure that anyone coming here doesn’t believe their mission is to bring with them an antiquated and barbaric system to impose on us. We have the authority under current law to stop members of totalitarian ideologies from infiltrating and working to subvert our free system.
The problem is not Muslims per se; it is Islamic Supremacists who push the totalitarian ideology called Sharia. Unfortunately, this is a significant number of Muslims worldwide; a Pew International poll shows more than half of them believe Sharia should be the law of their land. Most also believe this law should apply to non-Muslims, as well. That could hardly be more un-American and we have every right to tell those folks “That’s not how we do things here.”
There are differing versions of Sharia, but they agree that the practice of all aspects of life is governed by the unassailable word of Allah and not one single bit of it may be questioned. That includes an ironclad prohibition on any man-made law superseding Sharia and a requirement for believers to actively work to impose it everywhere. This makes it impossible for a Sharia-adherent Muslim to swear an oath to obey the U.S. Constitution or any other country’s governing document. There can be no agreement to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, Caesar must submit to Allah.
That single fact makes it prudent to restrict immigration by anyone who holds those beliefs. We have done this previously to stop totalitarian communists and fascists from infiltrating with a mind to undermine our society from within. That subversion is actually the very goal articulated by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood for its operations here in the United States: “The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house.”
It makes perfect sense to say to a group that wants to destroy us “from within” that “you are not welcome to come in.”
The dividing line we need to use for making policy is Sharia; the practice of Sharia is simply not compatible with life in the U.S. It is also the dividing line between Medieval Islam, with its abhorrent practices such as death for homosexuals; stoning for victims of rape; forced marriages and genital mutilation for girls; and Modern Islam, which could properly be called post-Sharia. The problem is Modern Islam does not truly exist yet. There are Muslims who do not practice or believe in the barbaric acts Sharia requires, but they are technically apostates, defectors of Islam, and the penalty for leaving is death.
The current state of play has members of the medieval form acting as the loudest voices of the “Muslim” community. Those who wish to practice a modern version do so at their own peril: they face shunning at best and death at worst. The medieval practitioners are aided in this effort by vast support; even the U.S. government has embraced them both abroad, by supporting groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, and here at home, in the form of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others.
Our U.S. government has a responsibility to safeguard this country and our way of life. That includes banning those who wish to destroy us from entering the United States. We must add Sharia to the list of totalitarian ideologies that trigger this prohibition. This will help all Americans including Modern Muslims who just want to live in peace in the land of the free.
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments